Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter series.

("It would be nice to really shed the corsets.")

"Mother," Bella hissed, clutching her chest. She gasped short breaths as Druella tightened the strings of the corset with a sickening expertise.

"Stand still, Bellatrix, and this won't take so long," Druella said harshly, slapping her daughter's hand away as it reached back to loosen the strings.

"Any more of this and it won't take long for me to faint," she growled back, her head spinning already.

Druella made a clicking sound with her tongue. "You're a strong girl, Bellatrix. Certainly you can handle an undergarment," she mocked harshly, "Besides, if you do happen to faint, perhaps you will present the façade of being dainty. And wouldn't that be a convenience."

Bellatrix held her tongue as a thousand retorts came to mind that would only further disprove the illusion of daintiness. "I can barely talk, let alone think, wearing this!"

"Good."

Bellatrix gave a huff of annoyance and then continued, "I don't see how this is going to help me catch a husband if you think they'll be so repulsed by my personality."

Druella pulled the laces tighter still as she replied, "Bellatrix, if men stopped marrying because of the distasteful personalities of their potential wives, the Black family would not have continued for quite so long."

"You're only trying to smother my ability to live," Bella moaned in frustration as she felt her rib cage constrict unnaturally.

Druella's hands left the back of the corset only momentarily to smack Bellatrix across the cheek. "I am trying to assure you a high position later in life, you ungrateful brat."

Bellatrix ignored the stinging in her face to spit out, "I'm a Black, Mother. Marrying will only lower my position."

Druella glared at her daughter through narrowed eyes. "A woman is nothing without the name of her husband."

The very thought with the restricted airflow caused by the corset made Bellatrix want to vomit. "Maybe in your world."

Druella hissed, "My world is that of the pureblood society. And as you are a pureblood you are thus a part of our society whether you like it or not."

"I would much rather protect your society than flaunt it with pretentious teas and cotillions," Bellatrix mumbled.

Breathing in and out slowly, Druella spoke at last, "Bellatrix, we have long ago worn out the topic of your duties as a woman; not an untamed warrior."

Bellatrix had never felt so trapped in her life.

~:~:~:~:~:~

"Do you think they'll be able to tell that Bellatrix is a girl?" Andromeda mused from her observation perch, hanging upside down off of Bella's bed.

Even as this was said, Druella adjusted her daughter's appearance; pushing the corset and all it supported upwards and pulling the elegant dress robes downward.

"Shut up, Meda. In a year's time you'll be going through this exact same degrading," Bellatrix snapped, though her eyes softened at her sister because both knew that Bella had never minded showing off.

"Men will find you much more attractive if you don't run your mouth quite so much, Bellatrix," their mother muttered, now fixing Bella's hair. "You have the unfailingly Black ability to say precisely the wrong thing at precisely the right time."

Bellatrix sniffed, "It's not my fault if people can't handle the truth."

Druella frowned and then shot back, "Be that as it may, you would do well to take a lesson from your sisters; even Andromeda knows how to hold her tongue."

From her position on the bed, Andromeda smirked at her older sister.

In the mirror, Druella caught this look and raised an eyebrow at the middle child. "And you, Andromeda, had better not ruin those dress robes; they aren't meant for lounging around in to be wrinkled," she said disapprovingly.

Andromeda hopped off the bed and walked out of the room, but not before retorting, "Better tell Bella that."

Druella stared at her eldest and most difficult daughter as if analyzing a portrait. "Never mind your sister's comments about this neckline. You'll need all the help you can get with that dastardly mane of hair on your head."

Bellatrix snorted, "Ha. Rodolphus doesn't mind. He says it makes me look… untamable, I believe was the word."

Mother and daughter stared at each other without really seeing until Druella shot, "Don't be a fool, Bella. A man will say many things to win a girl's hand. What he thinks is another matter entirely."

Again, Bellatrix scoffed, "Mother. What do his thoughts matter when his ring is upon my finger?"

Druella almost gave away a satisfied smirk, but quickly concealed it by leveling Bellatrix with a strict gaze. "Just make sure it gets there, Bellatrix."

~:~:~:~:~:~

"Rodolphus," Bellatrix muttered under her breath, "My eyes are up here."

With a small laugh, Rodolphus gazed a few seconds more at her chest so enhanced by the corset before slowly raising his eyes to hers. That was perhaps the entity of why Bellatrix liked, or rather tolerated, him; he never obeyed orders until it was on his own accord.

"Forgive me, Ms. Black," he drawled with taunting propriety that neither possessed nor cared to possess. "I was merely admiring your lovely necklace."

Bellatrix didn't falter a moment but smiled back cheekily, "Mr. Lestrange, I am not wearing a necklace."

The corner of his mouth twitched at a smirk, but his eyes were wide with mock innocence. "Again, forgive me." From his coat pocket he withdrew a necklace that glimmered as he slipped it around her neck. His fingers lingered upon her skin for a moment until Bellatrix fingered the piece herself.

"It's lovely, Rodolphus. However, you would be a fool to think that I could be… allured by such petty things of the physical world," she said smoothly, her eyes laughing with double meaning.

Rodolphus barked a laugh as his hands ran down Bellatrix's arms until they were firmly planted on her corseted waist. He leaned in close to her and whispered in her ear, "Ah, I am no such fool, Bella. But luckily, I am not above these physical temptations you scoff at."

As his teeth grazed the length of her neck eventually finding her bare shoulder, out of the corner of her eye Bellatrix saw her mother watching them carefully. Bellatrix rotated her position slightly, so that Druella could properly see as she gave Rodolphus's ass a squeeze. Her mother's mouth was twisted into a mixture of annoyance and pride and Bellatrix merely smirked back. Even while Rodolphus continued to kiss the nape of her neck, slowly pulling her closer than the standards of society condoned, Bellatrix knew her mother was secretly thrilled.

There was no way that Bella would not be married by the year's end.

Of course her mother would rage at Bellatrix for such a blatant display of scandalous behavior the moment the night was over. But Bellatrix would have it no other way.

~:~:~:~:~:~

"You're quite lucky you're so well endowed, Bellatrix. Otherwise I can't see why any sane man would marry you," Druella said coldly as she struggled to get her daughter into the wedding dress that had been worn by all the eldest daughters of the Most Noble House of Black.

"I can't see why I would marry any man since I'm obviously above all of them. Besides, Rodolphus is hardly sane," Bellatrix retorted as the wedding dress was pulled roughly over her head.

Druella wrinkled her nose and snapped, "You might have done better with the younger Lestrange; he seems far more controllable."

Bellatrix laughed, "Oh, mother. Do you doubt my abilities to control a man? Or do you forget that I'm part Rosier too?"

It wasn't meant to be a compliment and thus Druella didn't take it as such. Instead, she lifted her daughter's chin and said, "You had better not slouch until the wedding is over and then…" her mouth softened into almost a smile "…you may do whatever you please. Narcissa, tend to your sister; I must greet the guests."

As Narcissa picked up a hairbrush and eyed her sister warily, Bellatrix began to lift the dress over her head.

"Bella… you can't possibly be thinking of getting married in only your underwear… can you?" Narcissa asked hesitantly.

Bellatrix laughed as she tossed the dress aside. "No, of course not; though, it's a fine idea." With a swish of her wand she summoned a black corset and gave Narcissa a look. "Well, help me put it on."

Narcissa didn't question her sister more than asking simply, "What's wrong with the one you're wearing?"

"No way am I going to be dressed completely in white," Bella muttered as Narcissa helped untie the corset their mother had picked out, "If we're lucky, the black will show through the dress and Mother can be properly mortified."

Narcissa sighed, but laced up her sister just the same.

"Besides," Bella teased, "A little more cleavage won't hurt the wishful onlookers."

~:~:~:~:~:~

"You look really dreadful in white," Rodolphus laughed as the pale wedding dress seemed to glow in the dark bedroom.

"I'm told I look better in nothing," Bellatrix replied alluringly, her eyes dancing with mischief.

But Rodolphus wasn't a man to waste away imagining things; he swiftly pulled the dress to lift it over Bella's head, only to be prevented as her hands were firmly planted on her hips.

"Careful," she warned mockingly, "That hideous thing is a sort of family heirloom."

"So is that," Rodolphus said, nodding to the ring that was now weighing down Bellatrix's hand.

Oddly enough though, in securing a proper marriage with a man such as Rodolphus, Bellatrix was escaping from her mother's world, for her husband was a man with the proper connections. It was, in fact, the only reason that Bellatrix had managed to swallow the idea of marriage at all. She had once thought of marriage as a prison sentence. But when she realized how the duties the wife of a Lestrange would compare to those of say... a Malfoy, Bella had practically jumped on the idea. Because Rodolphus didn't want a woman who behaved according to society, but according to passion, to cause; his Cause (which would very soon be her Cause).

In an uncharacteristically tender moment that mildly disgusted Bellatrix, Rodolphus took her hand in his and pressed it to his lips.

"It's beautiful," he murmured, his eyes lost in the sight of her fingers entangled in one ring. His ring, claiming her as his wife.

But Bellatrix gazed not at her hand but her barren, aching left forearm. "Yes, it is."

Rodolphus let out a low chuckle and met her dark eyes. While his were clouded with hungry lust, hers were gleaming clear with an inhuman passion. "You're beautiful."

He seized her face in his hands and attacked her lips without restraint. And Bellatrix let him, only because she needed him in an entirely different way than he needed her. His hands were quick to rove, possessive and determined. In a matter of minutes, only because she had not prevented him, Rodolphus had managed to do away with her dress robes leaving her only in black lace and a black corset.

"Why, Bella… what a scandalous little thing to wear under your wedding gown," Rodolphus taunted into between kisses, "Surely your mother would never approve."

"That was the general idea," Bellatrix growled back smugly.

"But black? To your own wedding… really Bellatrix, it's not a funeral."

But Bellatrix either didn't hear him or didn't find reason enough to reply to such trivial commentating because she didn't address the statement. Instead she found herself regretting that she hadn't gotten drunk at her own wedding in a means to embarrass her dear mother.

"Untie me," Bellatrix finally moaned into his ear, growing impatient as Rodolphus's hands seemed more interested in finding out just where the black lace ended than undoing the corset nightmare. "Now."

Rodolphus was more than eager to obey her command, though. Fiddling only momentarily on the intricate knotting of the corset, Rodolphus growled with equal impatience. Meeting his hands at the seams, he pulled them apart with all his might. Both sighed happily as the corset was thrown aside.

Bellatrix was free.

Author's Note: I was watching Titanic and this is what happened; Rose was being laced up in a corset so it wasn't completely random. Character study... if not entirely direct... of Druella and especially her relationship with Bellatrix was very fun, but I'd love to know what you thought of it! And of course, the quote in boldface belongs, quite coincidentally, to the lovely Helena Bonham Carter. :)